On December 13, 2003, U.S. troops found
a disheveled Saddam Hussein hiding in a hole in the ground by a farmhouse
near Tikrit, his hometown. He was taken into custody without a fight.
For a man who lived his adult life in lavish palaces and allegedly murdered
tens of thousands of his own people, both his confines and his demeanor
made a surprising contrast. He wasnt very toughhe was cowering
in a hole in the ground, and had a pistol and didnt use it, and certainly
did not put up any fight at all, U.S. Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld
told CBSs 60 Minutes.

Today, Saddam lives mostly in solitary
confinement under the watch of U.S. military police. Hes not allowed
to mix with other prisoners and gets a halfhour walk in the morning
and evening. He prays, reads the Quran and sometimes writes poetry.
During his daily exercise period, Saddam tends a small garden. He
is looking after a few bushes and shrubs and has even placed a circle
of white stones around a small palm tree, said Bakhtiar Amin, the
human rights minister in the new Iraqi government, to the Associated Press.

Saddam is on trial in the Iraqi High
Criminal Court for crimes committed during his three decades as Iraqs
president. (To learn more about the specific charges against him, see
our companion feature The Crimes of Saddam Hussein.) Human rights
investigators discovered troves of documents detailing some of his crimes
after safe havens were established in Iraq in the wake of the first
Gulf War. After the 2003 invasion and Saddams capture, the U.S. Department
of Justice created the Regime Crimes Liaison Office in Baghdad to help
find more evidence of his crimes. Iraqi and U.S. investigators have since
unearthed hundreds of mass graves all over Iraq. At one such site in
Hatra, about 200 miles north of Baghdad, investigators found the remains
of 150 men killed by automatic weapons fire and the bodies of 300 women
and children. According to Investigator Greg Kehoe,
What was found at Hatra shows how the Hussein leadership made a business
of killing people  the marks from the blade of the bulldozer that
shoved victims into the trench, the pointblank shots to the backs of
the babies heads, the withered body of a 3 or 4yearold boy still
clutching a red and white ball.

Saddam is expected to face genocide
charges for his role in the Anfal Campaign against the Kurds in the
1980s and his attacks on the Marsh Arabs in the 1980s and 1990s. The
1983 Barzani abductions and killings may also fit the definition of
genocide.

Few observers doubt that Saddam is guilty
of many of the crimes of which he is accused. But many people do have
questions about the best way to bring a ruthless war criminal like Saddam
to trial. His capture prompted a worldwide debate about how best to
achieve justice for the Iraqi people.

Dave Johns is a writer and public radio reporter in New York. His work has appeared on many national public radio programs, including NPRs Living On Earth, PRI/WNYCs Studio 360 and The Next Big Thing, and other shows.